A Weekend Retreat

Galia is now making good steps on her road to recovery from her first operation before having to endure another operation in a few weeks. I really to feel for her as she has been in pain throughout the ordeal, sometime you can't see the benefits ahead with this upon you. Reassured, time will see her through and the pain will have been a forgotten history in due course.

This weekend, we relaxed in Skalitsa at the farmhouse, we both love it there and if it wasn't so far away from town we would both be living there full-time. It just takes too long and is far too expensive to commute to Yambol and back on a daily basis. I used to do this and know it is not practical, and Bulgaria is all about being practical.

So two days in the Skalitsa farmhouse what did we do?

The answer is quite simply, Galia did nothing, I wouldn't let her. She wanted to cook clean and all the usual things that Bulgarian women are brought up to do. She knew it was wrong right now to exert herself with these chores so she just lay down on the sofa bed and watched television, while I did my English thing of not being able to relax.

While Galia was engrossing herself with Bulgarian television, I was drawn to the farm and land, big ideas again on the horizon about what to produce on this fertile land this year, I was almost in a trance as I walked around the grounds planning away. There wasn't much I could do outside right now, the ground was sodden and we all know there will be another major bout of snow and sub-zero temperatures before April, which is when work takes off here. I do have plans to start another blog about managing a farm in April when the new season starts, there will be a lot of work involved, but then who's scared of work? Back to today, there was one chore that could be done right now, that was to prune the fruit trees and a walnut tree that was impinging onto the summer house, so it was cutting and sawing branches for a couple of hours.

When I went back into the farmhouse to check up on Galia, she had dusted, vacuumed and mopped the whole house while my back was turned. I could never be angry with Galia, but just had to accept that not allowing, or trusting in my case, men to do housework is something that has been bred into women here for generations, so why be any different today? Galia also knew that when I did get back in the house after the pruning, I would have been doing these household chores instead of her despite her unwillingness to allow me. Well it was now all done and dusted and Galia was none the worse for it, seemingly. I was now in the house for the remainder of the day and was allowed to cook dinner that evening, something that I haven't done for a while.

Having now both completed necessary work inside and outside the farmhouse respectively, we relaxed in our own company. Well actually relaxing with our laptops with no work other than top up the wood burner ever few hours, but that's not a chore that's a pleasure. There is the story about the supermarket chicken this weekend, but that will keep until the next post.

Sick? Bulgarians Know Best

It is a sense of total frustration in Bulgaria when you are sick, times like this just can’t be avoided as everyone had a bout of illness at some point. It was my turn this week. How do the Bulgarians look after me? Too much fuss from my experience.

I had been ill before having impaled my foot with a pitch fork a couple of years ago, that was the last time I have had needed support. Even then I was fussed over from everyone, checking up every few hours doing all the chores I couldn‘t do on the farm, it was overbearing sometimes, but it was reassuring that the community would never let you be ill on your own.

After screwing my Lada headlamps back in – they had come loose driving over the pot-holed Yambol roads twice a day – I leant down to check the headlight windscreen wiper and in tandem with a big crack there was a sudden burst of pain in my lower back. I had slipped a disc and knew right then that this would be a long healing process – I had done this once before in 1990.

News was out as I was on my hands and knees crawling into the house to the amazement Galia and Baba, they thought at first I was up to my tricks, but soon realised that the acting was far too good. The trouble was that I knew exactly what the problem was and they didn’t, but they thought they did. Bulgarians are always so confident that they know best, especially so as I was a foreigner here. What’s that got to do with me not knowing what my injury is I’ll never know.

Being Bulgarian they took charge, it didn’t matter what my diagnosis and suggestions for a remedy, I was helpless to do anything about it. What I needed was a day or tow lying down with a couple of painkillers and heat rub and I’ll be right as rain by the weekend, but that opinion was never going to sway the opinion of Bulgarians.

It was off to a cousin who was a doctor for some advice, the advice that came back was a series of injection, one batch for killing the pain the other was a steroid based injection. I just hate injection and faint at the thought, but this is out of my control. These drugs can be bought over the counter with no prescription, which was a little worrying.

Next thing I know, I am having a needle Sir Lancelot would have been proud of stuck into my bum. Half any hour later I couldn’t feel a thing. This is not what I wanted. I now don’t know whether my back is getting better or not. The following night another dose of injections and later that second evening I was evening dancing a little bit before going to bed.

My fear was realised that third morning when I couldn’t even lift a leg to get out of bed. The painkiller had worn off and I was paralysed and that how I am right now. I am due for another final injection tonight, which I don’t want, but it will be administered. The dancing last night just must has dislodged something and not being able to feel a thing or realise it had now happened.

Who know what will become of me tomorrow?